Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird's-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

Offering a rare chance to experience a breath of untapped, crystal clear air, Valley Benchmark allows you to encounter a morning high up in the mountains when the snow-capped peaks are just barely glittering in the rising sun. Be it flying over the vast green expanses or hiking along rocky slopes, this journey continues as long you wish. Unique in every corner, this open-space world provides a wonderfully relaxing experience under the tranquil music and sounds of nature.

"Living in Siberia, we wanted to show how beautiful the nature is here. It is full of contrasts, and flowers can grow through the deadfall right next to brutal mountains," said Andrey Kushner, lead technical artist at UNIGINE Corp. "It was an interesting challenge to create this huge, yet detailed world. Moreover, our engine is so flexible that we could place all objects procedurally and recreate this valley with photorealistic graphics."

I had high hopes for this bench and I'm pretty disappointed by it. Heaven - even Heaven 3.0 - is a nicer bench. I'm hoping they improve the visual quality with future releases. Currently the only nice looking thing is to free roam and mess with the weather/cloud/TOD lighting combos you can get

This Benchmark seems to be more relevant than Heaven imo..I see more foliage and valley views in the games I play then floating 18th century battleships loaded with everything brass and towns with cobblestone roads.....just saying

What do you mean?
It runs a treat on default settings (1080p) on my lowly HD5850.
I quite like this one and, as jmcslob already mentioned, seems far more pertinent than Heaven (even if that _is_ an awesome-looking stress tester).
^^

What do you mean?
It runs a treat on default settings (1080p) on my lowly HD5850.
I quite like this one and, as jmcslob already mentioned, seems far more pertinent than Heaven (even if that _is_ an awesome-looking stress tester).
^^

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Did you see that draw distance? The pop-in on pretty much everything is terrible. The draw distance is about the end of your nose. This bench has a nicer aesthetic than heaven, but it seems to really fall flat technically in some areas, with draw distance being the biggest one (I'm also seeing no tesselation, for example).

To my eyes it looks like they're using 2D sprites in some cases for their tree foliage before the 3d stuff pops in... that's just pathetic for a benchmark IMO.

Did you see that draw distance? The pop-in on pretty much everything is terrible. The draw distance is about the end of your nose. This bench has a nicer aesthetic than heaven, but it seems to really fall flat technically in some areas, with draw distance being the biggest one.

To my eyes it looks like they're using 2D sprites in some cases for their tree foliage... that's just pathetic for a benchmark IMO.

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I just saw your system specs, so.. I guess my lowly specs can't quite see what you're referring to
Point taken though

I agree the field of view could be a little more fluid but I also see what they were doing.
They were trying to make the details appear more natural to the velocity of the camera.
But no doubt it could be done a bit more smoothly...Still though excellent benchmark.

All hyper realistic and then there are rocks on the ground made out of 16 polygons. Seriously!? If this is the best way to use tessellation engine on, then they all failed misserably. Ha sno one ever told developers how to use tessellation? It's un upgrade of LOD, so whats close to you should look great, whats (very) far away should look like that 16 poly rock. Instead they churn out idiotic ammounts of polygons on that mountain on the other end of the map and leave stuff close tot he viewport ugly as hell. Makes no sense and they all freakin do this. In all games and all benchmarks.

If this thing will get a much higher draw distance, some displacement mapping and tesselation, it will be even more beautiful.
But it is already prettier and more appealing than Futuremark´s same old space benchmarks...